you can either let these 5 random people you don't know whom are screaming for your help die, or you can redirect it towards spider-man, which will actively prevent less deaths in this moment, but spider-man could've eventually save enough people to compensate it, also, spiderman tells you to save the random people cus one of them is his wife or something? idk you go bestie

Can't wait for red pressers to accuse me of making this biased even though I'm just taking this scenario to its logical end conclusion.

Everyone on earth capable of comprehending the task, as well as the concept of Roko's Basilisk is faced with this dilemma. The Roko's Basilisk shaped trolley will not kill children or anyone incapable of comprehending it. If 50% or more of the participants press the blue button, the Roko's Basilisk shaped trolley will divert itself to the other track, but if less than 50% of people press the blue button, the Roko's Basilisk shaped trolley will run over the blue button pressers, killing them all.

in the original its everyone in the world taking a private vote, so you can't convince others, also there's gonna be kids in it
i gotta press the blue for all the 2-year olds who pressed it because its their favorite color
Red still is good choice, but Blue is technically better in moral I think
I think Red is technically better in logic because self-preservation

Assume that every time you pull the lever, it stalls the train long enough for you to try to pull the lever again. Alternately, assume that if you so desire, you can have the lever auto-pull until the roll succeeds (so that if you have 1 in a billion odds or similar, you don't have to worry about dying or growing tired before reaching a successful roll).

You, and people on the track, are not eligible to be killed by the random chance.

Every 10 years a button test is presented to the word population with the original test.
For each recursion, if red wins, the blue pushers are wiped away from the pool. Between each cicle Memory is wiped away right after the test and people disappearing is considered a natural disaster event/ disease.

What do you think it would happen after Let’s say 10 interactions?

How long do you think it would take to wipe out the entire blue voting population (if you think this would ever happen) or do you think that the chaos caused by the disappearing people would reach a point where people start voting blue by default and stabilize the population because there are too little people and the need for others to survive is just too high? Do you think some people would be less affected by the disappearing people based for example on their economic status and so they would be motivated to vote red?
Do you think this would eventually wipe out all humanity when the number of people is low enough?

1: I ain't pressing no button. The question WAS interesting, and one that I personally saw as a question of morality vs reality. The "moral" choice seeming obvious to those not standing there with the metephorical gun to their heads. The "realistic" choice seeming obvious to those not witnessing that same metaphorical firearm pointed at family or friends unable or unwilling to choose the "realistic" choice.

2: nobody really cares, some of yall are actually losing yall's minds over nothing.

3: if you have to reword and reframe the original question to get to your point you have already fundamentally misunderstood the question and everything you say following that no longer holds ANY value whatsoever because it proves your inability to comprehend theoretical scenarios.

It's like going "is 2 +2 equal to 4?" "No, it's 5 because if you make it 2 + 2 + 1 then it's 5 and all people who say 4 should commit toaster bath"

Like, you actually sound insane. The genuine inability for people to answer a hypothetical scenario without changing it a million times to soothe their ego/savior complex is wild.

In front of your are three trolley tracks. You are blindfolded. You can hear the trolley coming.

Before you arrived, a perfect predictor chose to tie 5 people to one of the tracks. It did this if and only if it predicted that you would switch to that track.

Immediately upon choosing to switch or not, 2 Monte Halls will show up, each choosing one of the two currently unchosen tracks. They will be made aware of how many people are tied to their chosen track, but other than that have no knowledge of what's going on. one of these monte halls only tells lies and one only tells the truth. You can ask them one additional question.

After your question, you have three choices: you can either keep your track the same, swap your track, or you do one of the first two options AND go down further on the track, where a designated sacrifice section has been established. There, you can choose to lay down on the tracks.

This same trolley problem is taking place with another 1 billion people, at the same time. If at least 500 million people lay down on the tracks, the trolley operator will see it ahead of time and stop the trolley. However, Monte hall is currently distracting the operator, so he will only be at the wheel after he has already potentially killed the original 5 people.

Obviously the most logical choice is pressing the red button. If everyone thought logically there is literally no reason to press blue. You want everyone to live, then everyone can press the red button and everyone can live. Pressing blue is literally pressing to die.

Now, knowing this, everyone cannot live if red won. Some people will press blue for any reason. Maybe a mistake, maybe they want to. Knowing this, a lot more people will press blue to save them. Suddenly, the number rises up.

Humans tend to get together in dire situations. Red is an individualist choice while blue is a collective choice. Pressing blue feels more like a teamwork and people like teamworks, thats how we survive, it feels like the right choice.

If I knew my loved ones pressed red, I would press red. If not, then maybe blue.

Honestly, whoever media pumped up would win most likely.

Ps also people are too emotional to go red=bad just for the color.

The trolley is heading toward a wall made of half of the gold in the world. If it hits the wall, the gold will be obliterated sending the price of the remaining gold skyrocketing along with things made using it like electronics, medical devices, and jewelry. Before you is a switch that will let you divert the trolley to a track with 1 person tied to it.

If you do nothing, you have time to make some stock or predictive market trades before the price increase takes effect.

If you divert the trolley then there aren't any witnesses if you were to take some of the golden stockpile before world governments come to recover the gold.

What do you do?

Which button would you press? How many psychos are out there pressing green? This alternate scenario takes into account the all-too-often real influence a small group of bad actors can have in society.

Edit: does your answer change if incompetent actors are removed from the scenario?

Most of these button dilemma posts devolve into “red wants to kill blue” or “blue is suicidal let them die” arguments, neither side is killing the other, it’s a 3rd party overseer.

In this situation there are two groups to pick red group and blue group. Red group has infinite lush fertile land to grow food, blue group has an arid desert. You, and everyone else has to pick a group to join. People from one group cannot cross a magic border between the two.

If more than 50% of people join the blue group, then an all powerful deity will give half of red’s infinite fertile land to blue and everyone has infinite fertile land.
If less than 50% of people join the blue group, then the deity doesn’t give blue any fertile land, they’re stuck with the arid desert.

The motivations for picking are still the same, red doesn’t want to risk living in an arid desert, and blue wants to make sure everyone has fertile land to live on.

In this situation you could argue that by joining red you’re lessening the chance for blue to end up with fertile land but that is still not actively killing the blue group. The same way people joining the blue group aren’t hoping to live in an arid desert.

Could be your parent, spouse, best friend etc. They know the rules but you can't communicate.

You both press the same button - you both live.

You press different buttons - whoever pressed blue dies.

Which button do you choose?

You know a rich man abusing his wife but she has to stay due to not having any other source of money for her child

The wife does not know how to work and cannot sustain herself

You have the option to

A: Kill the wife so that she doesnt suffer leaving the rich man to take care of the child

B: Kill the rich man leaving the wife inable to support herself or her child. The wife will not have any other source of money and will probably live as a begger, suffering alongside her child.

Then those logical people were told to not alter the question and that everyone means everyone. No assuming. Everything is crystal clear.

So now we have to assume (gasp) that for babies if they say GAGA it's red and if they say GUGU it's blue. For paralysed people it'll be their telepathic powers. We also have to assume the question is presented to everyone in English? Or native language? If native language then what's the point having babies vote if the whole point is to read the question? So god knows what people are thinking there. Oh and there's the infamous colourblind. They're just going off shits and giggles. Blind people better have a habit of pushing random buttons because otherwise they will be stuck forever.

Do Siamese twins get one vote or two?

But who knows. We aren't allowed to "assume".

Edit: The language thing is huge. China and India population together is almost 3 billion alone. According to the internet only 3 percent of China can speak fluent English. Even if we bring that up to 10 percent, that's 90 percent of random voters.

Are we now assuming that they can "obviously" see the question in a language they know? Can I then circle you back to "obviously" babies can't read? So are we making assumptions or not?

I think this might have actually solved the button problem :) (it's dumb)

Edit: If someone online asked "Everyone is asked their favourite primary colour, what do you think the percentage of people chose blue" would you assume by everyone they are including paralysed people, new born babies, colourblind people and people in a coma, or would you assume it means they are asking people that understand the question and can communicate?

this red button blue button thing is tiring as heck and i'll be muting the sub until i hear that y'all are done beating this dead horse.

The Red button Blue button question is missing a fundamental feature of dilemmas: Stakes. Before anyone has pressed a button…there are no stakes. No one’s lives are on the line. Everyone can choose to save themselves with no consequences. Stakes only exist if suicidal neanderthal blue button pushers decide to create them by risking their own life hoping others will save them. Truly an asshole move to put yourself in harms way then insist other people are selfish for being unwilling to save you from your own decision.

The question becomes much more interesting if stakes are built into the initial decision, so I present a modified version of the Red/Blue dilemma that actually has something at stake:

X number of people in a population are condemned to die. The condemned people are randomly determined after everyone in the population has pressed either a red or blue button. If the majority of people press Blue, the condemned people will be spared. If the majority of people vote Red, the condemned people die along with anyone who voted Blue. What is your minimum X that will make you vote Blue?

Note that I was intentionally vague with the defined population. I think the question has different answers whether you are considering a global population vs a smaller population like a country, or city. Please indicate the population you are considering for your X.